Crotone come back to shock Samp despite Schick’s brilliance

For the second week in a row, Sampdoria have slipped from a leading position to end up losing, as Crotone silenced the Stadio Luigi Ferraris with two second-half goals.

Patrik Schick illuminated the first half with a superb individual strike, but unfortunately it counted for nothing in the end as the Blucerchiati’s wastefulness came back to haunt them.

Crotone started the contest well, forcing Christian Puggioni to come rushing off his line to clear early on, but came close to shooting themselves in the foot when Federico Ceccherini sliced a cross onto his own post in the eighth minute.

Schick gave an early indication he was in fine fettle when he found the top-left corner with a delicious left-footed strike in the 17th minute, but Nicola Rizzoli ruled it out for offside.

No one was in any doubt three minutes later, however, as the young Czech striker scored one of the goals of the season. Receiving the ball with his back to goal, he flicked it over his marker and went around the other way to put himself in on goal. From there, he took a couple of touches and coolly passed beyond Alex Cordaz in the visitors’ net.

Doria’s No.14 turned creator moments afterwards, beating Aleandro Rosi with a neat flick to then cut back inside and lay it off for Dennis Praet. Unfortunately, the Belgian could only find the crossbar from around the penalty spot.

Fabio Quagliarella was also presented with a decent chance to double the lead, but dragged his lob narrowly wide of the goal with Cordaz caught in no-man’s land.

Marco Giampaolo’s men seemed to lose impetus in the second half, handing the initiative to Crotone.

Midway through the second half, Marcello Trotta fired a low cross into the six-yard box and Diego Falcinelli was sharper than the rest to stab home and restore parity.

Quagliarella had a good chance to put Samp back into the lead in the 67th minute but couldn’t direct his sliding shot beyond the Crotone keeper.

That proved to be the Blucerchiati’s last decent chance to find the winner and in the 80th minute substitute Simy Nwankwo volleyed home unmarked to hand Crotone a shock win.

Sampdoria 1-2 Crotone (HT: 1-0)

Scorers: Shick 21, Falcinelli 67, Nwankwo 35.

Sampdoria (4-3-1-2): Puggioni; Bereszynski, Silvestre, Skriniar, Dodô (Regini 72); Barreto (Alvarez 84), Torreira, Praet (Djuricic 68); Fernandes; Quagliarella, Schick.
Subs not used: Krapikas, Falcone, Simic, Palombo, Pavlovic, Cigarini, Budimir.
Coach: Marco Giampaolo.

Crotone (4-4-2): Cordaz; Rosi, Ceccherini, Ferrari, Martella; Rohden (Stoian 59), Barberis, Crisetig, Nalini (Acosty 80); Falcinelli, Trotta (Nwanko 75).
Subs not used: Festa, Viscovo, Claiton, Mesbah, Kotnik, Dussenne, Capezzi, Sampirisi, Suljic.
Coach: Davide Nicola.

Referee: Nicola Rizzoli.
Assistants: Stefano Alassio and Alessio Tolfo.
Fourth official: Riccardo Di Fiore.
Additional assistants: Domenico Celi and Marco Piccinini.

Yellow cards: Praet 16, Ceccherini 62, Ferrari 79, Falcinelli 83, Torreira 83.

Additional time: 0+4 minutes.